


Whumptober 2019: For the Hugs! (Sherlock Edition)

by Akarri, Ranowa



Series: Akarri and Ranowa's Months of Hugs [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Art, Gen, John Watson is a Good Doctor, John is a Bit Carelessly Dickish, John is a Mess, Nightmares, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Reichenbach, Sherlock is a Mess, Sick Sherlock, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2020-11-23 23:33:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20897954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akarri/pseuds/Akarri, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ranowa/pseuds/Ranowa
Summary: Whumptober 2019: collaboration of art and ficsCome inside for angst, sad and hurt favorite characters, and hugs every which way!





	1. Art/fic: Sherlock and John, Fever

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to Whumptober 2019!
> 
> Ranowa: This will be a collaboration between myself and Akarri, the second of its kind! All art is by Akarri, all fics are by Ranowa! We're going a bit overboard- most likely will follow a whumptober prompt list, but for Akarri, this is also an exercise in drawing hugs of some form, and for myself, it's an exercise in writing short!fic. (Look at my usual word counts, and you'll see why...) We're also only going to post the arts/fics that we like, so some days may only have art, some may only have fic, some may have nothing at all; some will have both!
> 
> Each chapter title will have whether it's art and/or fic inside, the main characters of the day, and the prompt, so you, the reader, can easily sort it all out to your heart's content. Each chapter notes will contain any applicable Archive warnings for that day's prompt.
> 
> ENJOY <3

"Sir. He's asleep. The freak _fell asleep_. At a _crime scene." _

"Good lord, really? Come on. I know it's not the most interesting case, but it can't be _that _boring. Don't even know the cause of death!"

"Look at him! He's drooling all over the floor!"

"Christ... come on, Donovan. I'll call him a cab; you see if you can get him up. Preferably without hitting him, please."

"Spoilsport..."

...

"...Inspector?"

"Yes?"

"I... think something's wrong."

* * *

It took, by Greg's estimation, a record-breaking eleven minutes, for John to make it over from the clinic. He suspected the invisible hand of Mycroft, and some highly illegal manipulation of traffic lights.

"I'm so sorry," he tried to apologise, leading the way under a stretch of crime scene tape. "I'm sorry, mate, I wouldn't have called, but-"

"-but it's Sherlock. I know."

_Yep, _Greg sighed inwardly, his shoulders sinking. That just about summed it up.

_It's Sherlock. _

Donovan had wasted no time in maneuvering Sherlock back to rest against the corner, as far away from any evidence as they could manage. Just what, exactly, it was that was wrong with him, Greg didn't know- but he was borderline incoherent, now, whimpering when jostled, and mumbling even when just left alone.

His skin radiated an aura of such heat that even Donovan looked disturbed.

John didn't look disturbed. John was outright worried the very instant he stepped in the room.

"Sherlock. _Sherlock." _He knelt down at the slumped form, tapping at his face with one firm hand. "Open your eyes for me?"

The detective made an attempt at mumbling. He didn't even get close to opening his eyes.

_"Sherlock," _John instructed again, this time in a voice that brokered no room for argument. "It's me. It's John. Come on. Give me a deduction."

"...ser... syringe. Syringe." Sherlock's free hand flapped, fingers wriggling across the room until John caught that one, too. "Under the loose... the..."

From the other side of the room, already collected, bagged, and tagged, was indeed the murder weapon: one lonely, dejected syringe. From underneath the loose floorboard, by Donovan, who still sat there in mid-sulk about it.

Somehow, Greg really wasn't surprised that Sherlock deduced in his sleep.

Er. Fever-induced delirium. Whichever.

John continued his rapid-fire examination, encouraging Sherlock to keep mumbling as he did so. Ever a good doctor, he moved quickly, a firm hand pressed from his throat to his eyes to his hair, forcing Sherlock's head up. He wrangled for the knot of his scarf, tugging it loose and free, then held up a finger before Sherlock's nose and chided, "No. No, Sherlock," when the detective tried to fumble for it back.

"Should I call an ambulance...?"

"No," John sighed, long-suffering and tired. "No, I think- home. I'll listen to his breath sounds there, maybe hospital then, but for now-" He pressed the back of his hand to Sherlock's hot forehead, quirk of a frown worrying deeper. "Yeah. Home." He cleared his throat, prodding the detective's face upwards again. "Sherlock?"

Sherlock's head rolled back, a loose tumble of damp curls spilled messily over the doctor's hand. He murmured something, something that sounded suspiciously close to _Jawn...?_

"Come on, you bloody wanker. Up. _Up."_

"...'s wife... Geoff, 'n... they need-"

"No, Sherlock, it's straight to bed, for you. They don't need you if all you can do is fall asleep at the scene." John tugged a few buttons loose against Sherlock's mumbled protests, all quick and business-like, then started to try and tug a limp arm up around him.

Sherlock continued to not cooperate in the slightest, his flushed, warm limb flopping about like a dead fish. His head dropped to John's other hand, nuzzling against it with one bright red cheek.

And just like that, John's firm professionalism gave way, and the stern expectancy on his face crumbled right into honest concern.

"What the _hell, _Sherlock? You had to realise you didn't feel well; why'd you do this? Why didn't you tell me?" He nudged at Sherlock's face again, loosening the heavy overcoat even at the uncoordinated flapping the effort got in what was probably meant to be a protest. "No, Sherlock, _talk to me. _You must've been running a fever before you left the flat!"

But these words garnered little more than a sloppy frown, those bright, exotic eyes still flickering. They were watery and bloodshot, half-lidded at best, and rolled sightlessly over from Greg to John without focusing on them at all. His brow furrowed, right in time with an even sleepier frown.

"John said not to," he mumbled at last, face crinkling with confusion. "He said... '_no time to babysit today, Sh'lock.'"_

Greg winced. John winced even worse.

Even half-conscious, miserably ill, and all the way asleep, Sherlock had somehow managed to fight out a halfway passable, _defiantly unmistakable,_ impersonation of John's accent.

"Jesus..." John buried his face in his hand for a breath, voice heavy and shoulders hunched with sudden, horrible guilt. "Sherlock-" Suddenly, John grabbed for the detective again, palming his face and tilting it back and forth until a flash of irritated eyes finally landed back on him.

"That meant I wasn't going to steal nitric acid from Bart's for you, you daft tosser! I didn't know you were sick!" John shook him again, now gripping his shoulders to haul Sherlock up off the wall in an awkward sort of hug, albeit one where the detective was closer to a loose-limbed mannequin than an active participant. "That never, ever applies when you're sick, Sherlock, do you understand me?"

Sherlock blinked fuzzily, glazed and bloodshot and absolutely not all there. He stared to John, slumped with lethargy, his eyes narrowing and his mouth in a constant state of sleepy, befuddled frown.

"John?" he murmured at last. Like a doll with its strings cut, he folded over in the middle, long, lanky limbs crumbling into John's lap and forehead meeting his shoulder.

"...yeah?"

"If you're babysitting again," Sherlock sighed, those soft, tired words just edging their way into a slur, "then I'd like a cup of tea."


	2. Art/fic: Sherlock and John, Gunpoint

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the kudos/comments!!!
> 
> Chapter 2 Archive Warnings: None (but art does have implied suicide, so please take care)

The first thing John did, upon stomping down the stairs like a race horse, huffing and puffing like an angry bull, wordless and silent, was stare at Sherlock, paralysed in the space of the door.

The second thing he did was stomp over to Sherlock himself, and for a bed-headed, pajama-mussed, bloodshot-eyed tiny person, he made for a _terrifying _sight as he grabbed right for Sherlock's violin with one careful hand, yanked it out of his grip, and set it down.

Sherlock considered pointing out that he'd been _good, _this time. Composing pizzicato at three in the morning so as to not wake up John or Mrs. Hudson, wasn't he proud? But a joke appeared dangerous, at the moment, as Sherlock had already deduced exactly what had happened and more to the point, what was _going _to happen, which made this really quite unfortunate-

And then, John did the third thing, which was punch Sherlock in the face.

More quiet. John, shoulders hunched, arrhythmically panting, again, like an angry bull.

Sherlock, from where he'd landed- safely away from hard edges and corners, propped up on his elbows, clear from any head-banging points, because he'd deduced what was going to happen, wasn't John proud?- rotated his jaw once. Considered his options.

"Ow," he said.

He considered this might have been not the best option after all, when John's panting screeched off entirely, and his flushed face darkened as scarlet as a tomato.

"Thank you for protecting my violin-" he started again, trying a second time, but got no further than that, because then John did the fourth thing, which was haul him up by the collar of his dress shirt and wrap him up in bed-headed, sleepy, tiny person hug.

Sherlock had _not _deduced this one.

"...John," he spluttered, halfway to choking on it. "John. I-"

"Shut up," John rasped. It was the first thing he'd said, dangerous and guttural and hurt, and Sherlock was not even given the chance to disagree as, after an unsteady, breaking inhale against his shoulder, John backed up and marched Sherlock straight backwards to his chair. He found himself pushed down like an especially clumsy doll, and then, re-commence hug.

"I- um. John. This. You are-"

"I said _shut up,_" John rasped again, but this time it was worse, because this time instead of dangerous he was perilously close to tears. The hands grabbing in his dressing gown tightened and nails dug so sharply a loose thread was torn, and Sherlock _might've _said something but _John Watson _was _close to tears_ and had told him to shut up, so Sherlock, did in fact, shut up.

Sherlock counted up just almost two and a half minutes, before John regained enough control over himself to speak again.

"Why did you have to make me _watch?"_

_Ah, _Sherlock sighed. _I thought so._

_Again._

It really actually hadn't been part of the plan, for John to watch. The phone call had been, but- Sherlock _had_ hoped, for John not to make it back in time. For John's anger to win out, for Mrs. Hudson to slow him down, _something..._

Alas.

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men, gang aft agley," Sherlock quoted quietly, somehow finding it in himself to be steady. John inhaled sharply once again, his hands shaky but calming. "An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, for promis'd joy."

It was all he could think to say. It also was also, he imagined, catastrophically unhelpful- but John _was_ the one who'd chosen to hug a high-functioning sociopath, so he was just going to have to deal with it.

John sniffed wetly, burying his face even deeper to the shoulder of his dressing gown. He breathed in deeper a few times, each one hitched and unsteady, but the grip on his shoulders was warm instead of desperate, now. In the press of his bare arms to his skin, Sherlock could feel the angry flutter of his heart begin to slow.

"Always h-hated that book," he croaked, then sniffed. Rubbed his face against Sherlock's sleeve again.

There was a smile hidden in his voice, there. Aha: success!

"It's a poem," Sherlock pointed out quietly. "1785, Robert Burns, in-"

"Shut up, Sherlock."

Sherlock, smirking back, did, in fact, shut up.

John stayed on him for minutes again, in what had to be one of The most uncomfortable and awkward hugs known to mankind. It was certainly the longest Sherlock had ever been held before, this side of the century. When John did, finally, pull back, he still was not released, one hand biting into his shoulder as the other wiped at John's red eyes for them to glare at him with such vehemence it nearly stabbed his breath away.

"Do you have a gun?"

..._unexpected question. _

"Why would I?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow. "I have you."

John chuckled once, but it was weak and wet and did not reach his eyes. "Ha-ha, very funny. Didn't answer the question."

"No, I do not have a gun."

The doctor narrowed his eyes, searching him up and down in a wet gaze that revealed no trust whatsoever. Which, Sherlock supposed, was fair. John glared at him for several moments, evidently searching for signs of deceit, but when no lie was found, he found himself engulfed in his second hug of the night.

It was quiet for a long time again. And when the words did finally come, a choked, grieving whisper right into the crook of his neck, they were nothing that Sherlock hadn't already known to begin with.

"You had a gun." He sniffed, shivered spasmodically, then jerked with the force of a tiny, swallowed sob. "You had a gun and I was _right there again _and I _still_ couldn't stop it."

Nothing more to say, after that.

John did pull away, again, after another excruciating period of nearly four minutes. He wiped his wet face once, not looking at Sherlock, and shuffled wordlessly back to fold himself onto the sofa, instead. Eyes shut, a hideous, floral pillow- Mrs. Hudson- hugged to the chest, he curled up, right there to stay.

_Ah, _Sherlock considered again.

Sherlock, wordless, returned to his violin. John, huddled small and tired, was shaky, shivering, and silent.

Sherlock played until his fingertips ached, and John did not wake again that night.


	3. Art/fic: Sherlock and John, Shackled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're sorry for the wait!

"Stop _squishing me!"_

"I am certainly endeavoring to, John-"

"You- are- _squishing- me!"_

"If you have _another _method for me to try and get us out of here, then by all means-"

"Sherlock _bloody Holmes-"_

"Oh, are we middle naming each other now, Hamish?"

"Sherlock if you don't fucking sit back down in the next three seconds, I will kick you somewhere you _really _do not want to be kicked, and so help me, you _will _sit down _then!"_

Tense silence.

More fidgeting.

One bony, pointy elbow, poking into the back of John's head.

Another sharp, raw scrape of skin against the bricks around them.

A vein throbbed in John's forehead.

"Well," Sherlock huffed, this time with another useless kick. A kick that travelled about one inch. "How exactly would you recommend I _sit down, _John? Considering that you _do_ appear to be taking up most of the available room."

"It's not _my _fault that you're such a lanky git-"

"Nor mine, that you are so unfortunately vertically challenged that you can sit in a thimble-"

"You're squishing me again, Sherlock! Remember what happens if you squish me?! Sherl- your hand is in my _mouth_, Sherlock, I swear, I swear to god-"

_"Fine!" _Sherlock cried, and at very, _very _long last, slumped back downwards as much as he could, and at last jerked his hand out of John's face.

Another awkward silence. Sherlock's elbow continued to dig deep into his back, or perhaps that was his knee; John really wasn't sure, what with Sherlock being such a _lanky git _with long arms and longer legs that loomed all about the world like a beanpole. He wasn't even sitting down, then, not really, with John taking up most of the space on the floor, leaving Sherlock to be awkwardly sandwiched up about a foot in the air.

John would've felt a bit of sympathy, if this wasn't _entirely _Sherlock's fault to begin with.

Sherlock fidgeted again, this time with a head tilt backward just enough so he could stare at John. Eyes, of course, piercing him like the bloody mind-reader that he was.

"You're blaming me, for this."

"Yeah, Sherlock. Yeah, I am!"

"And, _why, _exac-"

"Because I'm currently handcuffed to the most annoying bloke in all of London and shoved down a hole in the middle of nowhere, being stepped on by a giant giraffe of a human being named _Sherlock. _There is nothing about this _catastrophe _that does not _scream_ _SHERLOCK BLOODY HOLMES!"_

More silence. More fidgeting, Sherlock all but literally scratching at the walls, one knee knocking into John's back while he tugged with their bound hands, the cuff biting into John's wrist. John reconsidered nagging at him to pulling his hand back from his face, because at the continued painful tugging, he really, _really_ wished he could bite a finger in retribution.

Childish, yeah, but Sherlock was, actually, a giant child, so.

_God. _

From somewhere about the vicinity of his ear, Sherlock sniffed again, haughty and snide as Mycroft. "Be honest, John. You _do _enjoy this."

"I _what?"_

"You _were_ properly warned, were you not? By just about every- John, you are sitting on my foot!"

"So _move _your foot!"

"Stop _sitting on me! _Honestly, John, if you persist on this cuddling in my lap, people really will start to talk-"

John elbowed Sherlock straight in the ribs as hard as he could. It took a near herculean maneuvering of his bad shoulder, one that made it screech in pain and felt like it was being tugged right out of the socket, and at the sharp, shocked grunt of surprise, driven straight from his friend's lungs, it could not have been more worth it.

"As I was _saying..." _Sherlock growled onwards. In the low light and cramped quarters, it was hard to tell, but his exotic eyes looked dangerous and narrow and bright, like a snake's. "You were warned, quite thoroughly, by just about everyone imaginable, about the sorts of situations you would find yourself in if you chose to associate with me."

"Fairly sure I was warned about you trying to kill me, not squish me to death in a hole in the ground."

"And yet, here you are. Being..." the detective sniffed again and lifted his chin, as if the word was too low-brow and informal to bear allowing it to cross his lips. "..._squished."_

"By a giant giraffe."

Sherlock sighed, one awkwardly hunched shoulder rolling uncomfortably against the wall. "Not the most flattering metaphor that's been used to describe me, but, yes."

There was another misery-inducing, earth-shatteringly uncomfortable pause. Just out of the corner of his eye, John somehow managed to glimpse Sherlock smirk. (He considered another elbow to the ribs.)

"And yet," he said again, "here you are. After all those warnings... here we are."

"Is your point that I'm a masochist and reckless nutter for being friends with you, because I'm pretty sure everyone already knows that by now."

"Masochist?" Sherlock started, and somehow, infuriatingly, actually had the gall to sound innocently surprised. The _wanker. _"What idiot told you that, Donovan? No, John, do keep up; we've been over this- you're an adrenaline addict, not a masochist. Honestly." He shook his head again, and it was almost impressive, really, the way he managed to look haughty while folded up and cramped and yes, _squished. _Impressive, or criminal. "And no, John. My point is that you _enjoy this."_

John glared.

Sherlock continued smirking.

John considered if it was worth the strain, to elbow him again.

Sherlock... continued smirking.

God _damn._

His eyes slid shut, resignation rather whacking him abut the head like a slap, and John slumped as much as he physically could. Which was, really, not much. Sherlock chuckled lowly beside him, warm air gusting against the back of his neck, and John weighed the benefits of trying to strangle him versus keeping the git around for company, in however the hell long it was going to take Mycroft or Lestrade to find them.

Yeah, god, _fine. _He _enjoyed this._

Mad bastard.

"You're still making the tea when we get out back home," he snapped, this time with a half-painful, half-fond jiggle of their bound wrists, and Sherlock's grin only flashed brighter.


	4. Art/fic: Sherlock and John, "Wake Up"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ranowa: At this point, we might as well stop apologizing for being late, and just accept we'll be late xD My schedule and Akarri's don't sync up well enough for her to finish an art, and me to write something based off that art, all in one day, so most updates will probably take two or three days.
> 
> Apologies, and we hope you enjoy <3
> 
> Chapter 4 warnings: Major Character Death (It's Sherlock's fake death, but John doesn't know it's fake, so)

The first time it happened, it was a patient at the clinic.

John was just stripping off his gloves, writing out a script for strep throat, and talking through the instructions on autopilot. He hadn't slept much, the night before. Rarely slept much, anymore. Had to stop twice halfway through the prescription to rub his eyes, swallowing the yawn trying to tear his throat out.

"Wait," Sherlock said suddenly. "That lesion in her throat. Look again, John. Look again, and tell me what you see. _Actually _see, John; as ever, you look, but you do not observe!"

John, again on autopilot, obediently did as exactly Sherlock suggested. Ten minutes later, his patient was being scheduled for a precautionary scan, and Sherlock was preening, just out of the corner of his eye, the smug bastard; chin lifted and eyes bright like a child who'd just been told _good job. _

John swallowed the anxious knot with the yawn, that time, and let him.

The second time it happened, it was again at the clinic. This time, when John almost missed a worrying fluctuation on his patient's chart, creatine levels just a smidge too high, and Sherlock kept on preening just in the corner of his eye like a prima donna.

Sherlock, as far as John knew, barely knew what creatine was. Had deleted it, if he'd ever learned in the first place- or perhaps not, if he determined it important enough in forensic pathology. Regardless, he certainly didn't know the baseline for this particular patient.

John kept his mouth shut about it.

Third time, it was again a patient at the clinic. This time, Sherlock tensed and scowled, eyes flashing, and he all but growled like a bloody dog. "Look closer at the bruise," he snapped, with a dismissive flick of the hand. "And if you don't see what I see I'm giving up on you as a lost cause and enlisting Mrs. Hudson as my assistant instead."

"Not your assistant," John muttered. A twinge the size of a golf ball materialised in his throat.

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing," John said to his patient, "nothing at all," and he smiled disarmingly at the boyfriend waiting tense in the corner, and he sent the front desk their signal for suspected domestic abuse.

Sherlock continued stalking and glowering, his coat a dramatic swirl and his eyes flashing.

John made sure to never look too close.

Sometimes Sherlock deduced on the streets. Flouncing and dramatic, pointing out a passerby's affair and the bus driver's sick partner and whatever else in the world. His eyes brilliant and beautiful, so _excited_, scarf always trailing like a war banner, and god, but it broke John's heart not to smile back. He looked at the warm, smiling nurse at the clinic who asked him for coffee, narrowing his eyes and sniffing like a sniffer dog; "She's unsettling, John, don't you see? Don't you see, there's something off about her, John, I don't like her-"

"You just don't want me to have friends besides you," John muttered under his breath, and he felt warm, inside and out.

Sherlock continued glaring, and didn't stop until John texted Mary, and told her he wouldn't be able to meet her for breakfast after all.

"Wake up, John," he said. "You need to wake up."

"I am awake, aren't I? Or are you telling me I'm sleepwalking, now, Sherlock?"

The detective said nothing, watching him silently with those bright, dangerous eyes, and John's throat went a little tighter.

He glared at Greg in a permanent sulk, whenever they met up for drinks, drinks that Sherlock bullied him into accepting in the first place. Glared and sulked and muttered, _"It's your fault,", _and his voice sounded just a little more bit like John's when he said that, and John couldn't bring himself to tell him to knock it off. He muttered something witty and obscene, when John glimpsed Donovan across the street, and one night, verbally eviscerated John for five minutes straight, when he tried and couldn't make himself call Mrs. Hudson.

John had never been so happy to be insulted by his best friend.

"Fantastic," John said. Sherlock deduced, and he said, "That's _fantastic." _Brilliant, amazing, marvelous; "you're a star, Sherlock," and the edge of voluminous coat, mussed curls, and gleaming eyes melted a little bit softer.

He stopped keeping count, at some point.

He started sleeping a bit less, instead. Drinking a little bit more. Working longer hours. Drinking more than a little bit more.

<strike>It made Sherlock more real.</strike>

"Wake up, John," Sherlock would murmur, a chastisement that cut deeper and deeper as Sherlock's blinding grin faded. John closed his eyes tight, whiskey burning in his throat, and he could just feel a hand tugging at his collar and cold at his throat. _"You have to wake up."_

_I don't want to, _he didn't say, but he smiled to Sherlock instead, and he knew when he opened his eyes, he'd be gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ranowa: this one takes place during the hiatus/Sherlock's two years away, with John willfully imagining Sherlock talking to him, in case it wasn't clear ;u;


	5. Art/fic: Sherlock and John, Lost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for all the comments and kudos!!! They mean the world to us <3
> 
> Ranowa: after last Sherlock day was so angsty, some fluff for you, instead. (And with a tag added, inspired by the depths of slack for TW staff. Love from a fellow cat <3) Next prompt is going to be Sherlock as well, and I'm particularly excited for it ^_^ 
> 
> No Archive Warnings Apply

"-_and another thing. _It is one matter to have a limited input of visible stimuli, but it is very much another to have none _whatsoever._ This is tantamount to being blindfolded, John, we've got to be miles outside of London- and your unceasing waving of that flashlight is simply worse than no light at all, John, either hand it to me or hold it straight, but for god's sake, stop that!"

John hummed quietly to himself, still trudging along, and gave the flashlight another bouncing wave.

Sherlock snuffled like an upset toddler, and started again.

"No idea where we are. No idea _when _we are, for that matter, not the date, or time of day- they took my _watch, _John! Like a common mugging! They actually took my _watch, _probably sold it off to a pawn shop already-" he bemoaned on, leaves crunching and twigs cracking as he all but stomped at John's heels, a fuzzy smudge in the darkness of a billowing coat and flapping arms. "The disgrace, the injustice, the... _je ne sais quoi,_ John, this entire situation, to be handled as such, by such a common vagrant-"

"You're only annoyed because said common vagrant got the better of you."

"Got the _better of me?"_ He huffed and puffed himself up, like an indignant puffer fish, John imagined, affronted as could be, and John didn't even bother to hide his snicker as the genius ranted on. "As if any manner of intelligence could serve as a defense against being dosed with enough opioids to knock out a horse!"

"Mmmhm, but if anyone could manage, it'd be you. But you didn't, did you?" John swung the flashlight around again, bouncing it so the beam skittered and landed over nothing, a weak gleam of white disintegrating into the dark. "You didn't, and now, we're here. No idea where we are. No idea when we are. With your watch at a pawn shop." He paused pointedly, tilting his head in the continued sound of Sherlock's stomping steps. "Nursing what is, by the way, the worst crash in the _world."_

"And this is meant to be _my fault! _As if- as if- considering last time we got stuck out in the middle of the woods in the middle of the night, drugged against my will, _again-" _Sherlock gestured with such dramatics John glimpsed the wave of his white hand in the dark, the man all but beside himself in his performance. "And you have been of simply no help _whatsoever, _John, might I remind you. Your suggestions have been of less intelligence than the average psychic, which is in fact the reason I was so unwilling to take a case involving psychics in the first place, but, in your unfailing brilliance, here we are, me taking the case, here we are, stomping around out here, _can't see a thing-"_

John continued to grin, and sweep the flashlight in the most annoying manner that he could.

"I realise, John, I do. I understand how it might not bother someone like you. Someone who properly observes next to no stimuli and properly analyses next to none of that, perceiving barely a single tree out of any entire proverbial forest, existing instead as a placid, passive mannequin. I understand that." Sherlock sneered on in a manner most snide, his voice taking on that edge when he had That Look, with the haughty chin lift and the defiant glint to his eyes, whenever he thought had had particularly devastating takedown for Anderson or Donovan. "So I think I must inform you, that for those of us who actually choose to utilize our visual perception, the way you are insisting upon distorting all visual stimuli with this incessant waving of the-"

John waved the flashlight uselessly about again, this time, spinning the beam skyward over their heads, and was rewarded with a sharp intake of breath behind him that was as high-pitched as Sherlock was high-strung.

"-the flashlight- is _really starting to-"_

"Hey, what was that? Sherlock, over there!" John swiveled the flashlight about, shining it, once again, in an utterly random direction. One that actually looked like it shone straight into a rocky outcropping and little else, it seemed like. "Did you hear that?"

Sherlock sniffed again, surely holding his head high. The leaves crackled miserably loud under his feet as he all but stomped to a stop behind him, seething and incensed as could be. "I heard nothing, John. The same of which I have heard the last three times you asked that question. One time might be forgiven, but it hardly takes an intelligent deduction to begin to suspect that you are-"

"No, I swear, Sherlock, I really heard it, this time! There's something-"

"Make a friend, they said. What could go wrong, they said!" Sherlock seethed under his breath, flailing about still. "I wind up lost for the first time in ten years, that's what can _bloody go wrong- _for god's sake, John, _give me that!" _

And with that, Sherlock snatched for him in the dark, violently ripping the flashlight free with all the snarling of a poked bear. He growled something at John, something that sounded German and not very polite at all, and then, still muttering, stalked back about and continued crunching onwards through this blasted forest, now leading the way himself.

Leaving John to, once again, muffle a snicker.

Sherlock Holmes: afraid of the dark.

Who ever would've guessed.

John grinned wordlessly to himself, continuing his own trudge down after Sherlock, and allowed his maniac of a best friend to continue to rant his little heart out.


	6. Art/fic: Sherlock, John, Scars

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ranowa: in this case, the art is based off my Sherlock fic Reboot, which you can read here https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132743 (though please heed the tags/warnings)! THANK YOU to Akarri for giving me fanart!!!!!!!
> 
> I'm still poking at a sequel to Reboot, and read through what I have for it this morning, and actually really, really liked it. It needs some macro adjusting, and a few scenes would still need to actually, you know, be written- but MAYBE SOMEDAY!
> 
> For now: enjoy!
> 
> Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions of Violence for the art

The way John treated him now, Sherlock determined, was intolerable.

Yes, that was the word.

Intolerable.

Wasn't just John, of course. Mrs. Hudson handled him like a broken porcelain doll, murmuring _oh, dear, _whenever she caught a glance at his unbuttoned collar, _oh, dear. _A broken porcelain doll with a cracked face or a disjointed limb, too ruined for restoration, not ruined enough to be thrown away. Lestrade was hovering, which was odd, hovering with the dullest cold case files imaginable, handing over insurance fraud and mortgage scam investigations that bored him out of his skull.

Mycroft, in particular, was scarce.

Surely nosing about on every CCTV on Baker Street, but he'd had the good sense to keep his nosy interference out of sight, and for that, Sherlock found himself actually grateful for his nosing nosy sniffing tosser of a brother.

But John was the worst.

Sherlock tried to shock him out of it. For fun, for laughs, because it was utterly, entirely, _wholly intolerable. _He slapped John's hands away when he fussed, and he fussed when John hovered. He refused to take antibiotics without minding, then threw a strop when John brought it up. He left tea ignored and food uneaten, sending John to Tesco at one in the morning only to then claim indifference when he got back.

And when John reminded him, two weeks Post Incident, that tomorrow he had an appointment at hospital to take his stitches out, Sherlock flounced onto his back as dramatically as he could, and refused to go.

It was _supposed _to make John put his foot down.

John was meant to say, _damn it, Sherlock, NO!, _whirl back on him with his patience lost and his face already turning red. John had made his stance perfectly clear, time and time again; he would not treat Sherlock if it was something serious. It was unethical, dangerous, and something that could get John before the licensing board and Sherlock on Molly's table if anything went wrong. John would treat him if and only if it was a minor: the removal of several dozen stitches in the chest, ones that already had an appointment with a trauma physician- John's insistence- and a plastic surgeon- Mycroft's, unasked for, unwanted, probably to be ignored- were not suitably minor.

It was supposed to shock John out of- _this._

This patience. That takenaback surprise, that so instantly faded to something sickeningly close to pity, staring at Sherlock as if he was a child to be minded instead of a brat to be tolerated. The way his voice softened, as if he worried that if spoken to harshly, that would be it, and Sherlock would break.

It didn't work, obviously.

It didn't work, and it was absolutely bloody _infuriating. _

"...Okay," John said, palms flat and breaths so carefully measured, tense in a way that told Sherlock he was having to work very hard, to keep them steady. "Okay. I can- if you really don't want to go to hospital. We can take care of this here." He paused for a beat, fidgeting, dithering. "If there's an infection, we need to go in- an infection anywhere in that area is not something you want to play around with, Sherlock- but we can do what we can here. If that's what you want."

No. No, it _wasn't._

"Obviously," Sherlock sniffed, raising his chin, and got one of the most miserable coughs and shuffles of his feet he'd ever seen in response.

He let John vanish back upstairs, getting his kit, medication, probably iodine, gloves, leaving him to 'get ready'. Sherlock, every breath shallow in his throat, a hollow weight spreading in his chest, unbuttoned his shirt nearly all the way, and lounged carelessly on the edge of his bed as he could.

It was saying _look at me, John._

_I'm fine, obviously, don't you see?_

_Stop looking at me like that, John. I'm fine._

_..._

_LOOK AT ME!_

John came back. He did not look at him.

"All right, Sherlock," he said. Positioned very pointedly to the side, staring at his hands as he pulled on gloves and not anything else. _Intolerable. _"You're going to lie down on these towels, so we don't make a mess. I'm going to give you a topical numbing agent, and when it kicks in, I'll-"

"John?"

"-sterilize the- yeah, Sherlock?"

"Do try to remember that I am not, in fact, stupid, and I have, in fact, had stitches removed before."

"You- right. Sorry." He laughed, but it came out nervous, somehow, and John still wasn't _looking at him. _"Let's just..."

John fussed, again. Shaking out a selection of already old, ratty towels over his bed, protecting the sheets, nudging Sherlock around with a clinical manner as if he were an inanimate object. He held stock still in response, breaths through his nose, something building and building in his chest until the fidgeting finally stopped, and John finally moved to get him lying down instead.

Which meant John had to look.

The flinch came, right on schedule. The hand on his shoulder, tensed to squeeze like a vice.

He was staring, now.

Maybe he should reconsider that plastic surgeon after all.

"What is it?" he snipped. "Not ready to come out after all?"

John was looking, nothing but looking, and Sherlock could not look back in response. Not to what terrible, intolerable things he knew were on John's face.

But John said nothing.

John just sat there at his side, frozen halfway to lying him down. Hand hovering just over the curve of the scars. Not stitches. _Scars._

He didn't say a single word, but he stared down at them, stricken into crumbling marble, and he stared at Sherlock in horror and disgust and for the first time, Sherlock didn't have the proper words to wrench that infuriating look off his face.

Intolerable.

His fault. He'd never wished so dearly to have just passed out a crime scene, passed out rather than have a fledgling mental breakdown in front of all of bloody NSY and shatter any confidence or admiration John had _ever_ had for him.

Intolerable. His fault. _Pathetic. _

"Stop that," Sherlock muttered.

John didn't, and, just a little, Sherlock hated him for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Again, here's the original fic this was based off of, if you haven't read it/want to read it/want to read it again!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20132743)


	7. Art/fic: Sherlock and John, Muffled Screams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, a return!
> 
> We are going to finish this, we just had to take a bit of a break for end of the semester type things. Apologies from us both. Now- onwards! Thank you to everyone still reading!
> 
> No Archive Warnings Apply 
> 
> (Ranowa: I managed to write something that had about 1% to do with the art go me :tada:)

"Well, that's that, then. Nothing left for it but to wait." Greg settled back in his seat, fingers interlaced together to stop a nervous tap that he hadn't been able to quite settle down. He needed a cigarette. "Shouldn't be long, now."

Mycroft hmmed quietly, his own gaze affixed firmly to the video feed.

"...You're awfully nonchalant about this, you know."

"Hmm," Mycroft said again, turning his coffee from one hand to the other. "I fail to see the benefit in getting worked up. Sherlock isn't even concerned himself."

"Right, because Sherlock's the poster boy for taking care of himself." He frowned, trying to put all _those _thoughts aside, mostly just to stop himself from what was probably an inappropriate smile. "Well, personally, I know I'll feel a lot better when we've got them both safe and sound. ...Even if it seems I'm the only one worried to begin with."

Because Mycroft actually did have a fair point. Currently abducted to parts unknown, tied up, and left with seemingly nothing at all to do but stare at the camera some overconfident criminal had hoped to taunt them with, Sherlock looked decidedly... he was...

Well, he...

He looked bored out of his skull, actually.

At least John was moving about behind him, though, with the camera angle, all they could see was the back of his head. He was fidgeting enough to put Greg's worries at ease, shifting against Sherlock's back, but Sherlock himself looked as if he'd just off and died right there. Just expired from boredom after all, sitting stock still and camera treated to such a withering glare that it was as if he could see the both of them, right now, and wanted to know precisely why they hadn't turned up to untie him yet.

Or, in Greg's mind: _creepy. _

"How's he so calm, anyway? What, did he just _deduce _we'd be able to trace the signal, that everything would turn out fine?" He squinted back at the screen, watching the consultant's continued staring contest. His eyes were glazed and dull, a half-lidded glare in an expression of deadened placidity, his stare only broken by a pattern of rhythmic blinks. Rapid and constant. Almost as if he was nodding off, or- _no... surely not..._

"Is he falling _asleep?" _Greg started, aghast. "Is he so bored that he's about to take a nap in the middle of a kidnapping?!"

"Hm. No." Mycroft gave another scratch at his coffee cup, his smirk sly and faint. "It's Morse code, actually."

"Morse..." Oh. _Oh. _Of course it was. That made more sense, of course, Morse and Sherlock Holmes- obviously, as he'd say. "I- right. That's-" He racked his brain, scouring for old knowledge of the dots and dashes as he pushed files aside, searching for a notepad to start deciphering it all down. "What's he saying? Anything to help us find them? Or something about who took them? Hang on, I've almost got it-..."

_A...G...D...C..._

_G...G...G...E...C..._

"...hang on. Something's not right..."

"Quite."

"No, look, Mycroft-" He pushed the notepad over to him, though, truly, wasn't sure why he'd bothered; the man had probably translated whatever it was Sherlock was saying in his head. Or just deduced the end of the sentence before Greg had even figured out it was code at all. "This doesn't spell anything. It's just gibberish."

"Gibberish to those of us not musically inclined, perhaps."

"What the hell does _that _mean?"

"Gregory," Mycroft sighed. There was something long-suffering about his voice, now, like he was exactly as bored as his little brother and then some. About to nod off himself, having to explain matters to the mere mortals of Scotland Yard. "Sherlock knows we are tracing the signal, and therefore has no need to pass encoded messages through to us that he will just as easily be able to tell us in person. Nothing he is saying will help your investigation."

"Um. Okay." A stilted moment of confused silence. "So- what _is _he saying, then?"

"Previously, he was giving the run down of John's little speech. Apparently, John is less than pleased with their current circumstances, and has been complaining non-stop about it, even while gagged." He tapped his fingers once, something almost like a smirk still twitching in place. "Evidently, he blames my brother for this predicament entirely. Likely for very good reason."

Oh. _That _was what John was doing, then. The shifting around, was because he was yelling- or trying to, even with what looked like a pair of socks stuffed in his mouth. And the look on Sherlock's face was because he was a captive audience to it.

Which probably served him right. Greg had no doubt that Mycroft was correct: it probably _was_ entirely Sherlock's fault.

"Wait- but you said previously? That's definitely not what he's saying now." He glanced down at the gibberish he'd abandoned on his notepad, not words at all. "What's he up to now?"

Mycroft gave a second sigh of the longest, most eternal suffering.

"He only took this case as a favour to me, of course," he gave at length, inspecting his fingernails now; Sherlock simply continued his dead-eyed stare. He _knew _Mycroft in particular was watching, oh, Greg was sure of it. "It is the only reason he does anything that I ask. Currently, he's telling me not to expect anything for my birthday, because this case has spiraled to end so unfortunately that it now encapsulates all societally obligated gifts for the rest of the year."

Greg stared- as blankly as Sherlock. He worked his jaw, turning the words over in his head. He opened his mouth once, then shut it again.

"Oh, for goodness' sakes, Gregory. He's spelling out the notes to _Happy Birthday."_

Greg stared, again.

Then, proceeded to simply drop his face into his hands, and laugh, while Mycroft sat there with his put-upon air of exasperated suffering, and Sherlock continued his dead-eyed stare right at the camera, performing his supremely screwed up version of _Happy Birthday. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, and we hope you enjoyed! Feedback is always welcome and appreciated <3
> 
> (Please bear in mind: we're doing FMA and MCU for this month as well, and we're also busy individuals outside of ficdom ;u; Some days will have an art/fic/hug for another fandom, and some we may have to take a break entirely. Please bear with us here, and hopefully, we can all have some fun!)


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